Last week the firm announced its third-quarter profit was down a whopping 84 percent from last year.

Peabody also revealed it plans to reduce costs by about $100 million a year, through steps including laying off miners.

Company executives did not reveal how many jobs will be lost but obviously, the number will be significant.

Earlier this year, the third-largest coal company in the United States, Alpha Natural Resources, revealed plans to lay off 1,200 miners.

As we have reported previously, domestic consumption of coal is declining. Electric companies' plans to close scores of coal-fired power plants will reduce it even more - while increasing the cost of power to tens of millions of Americans in the long run.

This is hardly the rosy picture being painted by the president and his liberal supporters.

And Tuesday's re-election of a president famously unfriendly to coal will send the industry's outlook into a further dive.

It's fine to embrace other energy sources, such as wind and solar, but it's not practical to purge other, more traditional energy entities. The best energy menu for America is a divergent one.